The Three Count

by Jimmy Korderas

  The fun that evening didn’t quite end there. Fun may not be the correct word in this instance. Let’s just say that what happened next opened my eyes to whole new world of drunkenness. It wasn’t pleasant. As I continued sipping my drinks while standing at the bar, three or four of the boys cozied up to the bar right beside me to order drinks. One in particular was very drunk and standing immediately to my right. Then the strangest and most unbelievable thing happened. This well-known WWF superstar began to urinate at the bar. He was hiding it very well with his blazer and his cohorts were covering for him. I probably would not have even noticed had this man not peed on my right foot. That’s right; he was peeing on my right foot! I pulled my foot away the very second I noticed what was going on, but the damage was done.

  Not knowing what to do next, I did the only thing I could do. I casually walked out of the bar and went into the nearest restroom. Then, I took off my shoes without using my hands. Next was getting my wet right sock off again without touching it. Grabbing a bunch of paper towels, I slipped off my soggy sock, left it and my shoe in the restroom, and proceeded to my hotel room. Once there, I took my pants off because they too had been infected with the urine of champions. I was not keeping any of the infected clothing so I was travelling home minus one pair of pants, one pair of shoes, and of course a single sock. It was a good thing my referee shoes were just black sneakers because I just wore them home.

  I know what you all are thinking: who was the superstar responsible for this unusual moment and my loss of clothing? I don’t like to name names but I will say this. He was a former Intercontinental champion and he was as solid as a “Rock.” No, it wasn’t Dwayne Johnson. I may have given it away to some of you but hey, the guy pissed on my foot so he had it coming.

  Throughout my 20-plus years with the WWE, I have been privileged, honoured, and maybe just a tad bit lucky to have been a part of some firsts. I thought it would be appropriate to tell you a little story about my first Survivor Series experience. It just so happens that it was also the first ever Survivor Series.

  The date, Wednesday November 25, 1987, the day before the inaugural Survivor Series pay-per-view, I was absolutely thrilled that I was booked to be a part of this historic event, which took place at the Richfield Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio. Because Richfield was not that far from Toronto, where I lived, I decided it would make more sense to drive to the event than to fly. After all, it was a one-shot deal, meaning it was the only show we had that weekend. One small problem: my car was acting up so I ended up borrowing my mom’s K-Car to make the trip. For those of you who remember this classic vehicle, stop snickering! It had less than 20,000 kilometres on it, so it was still relatively new.

  The drive to Ohio was uneventful. Of course I did have to make my obligatory Micky Ds pit stop along the way. It took less than five hours for me to make it from my driveway to the Holiday Inn located next to the Richfield Coliseum. After checking in to the hotel, I got a quick bite to eat in the hotel restaurant, had a few pops with the boys, then called it a night.

  The day of the Survivor Series, Thanksgiving Day, I arrived at the building around noon to take advantage of the WWE’s catering. Hey, free food is free food and their catering was usually very good. After I made a total pig of myself, it was time to get to work. I didn’t have to help set the ring up that day so I concentrated on my referee duties. That was when I found out that each match would have two referees assigned to officiate it. I was paired with Joey Marella. We were assigned two matches that night. The Women’s Survivor Series match featured Team Sherri Martel versus Team Fabulous Moolah. For this match I would be the inside referee and Joey was the outside referee. The other match we were assigned was the main event, headlined by Team Hogan versus Team Andre. Joey was the inside referee and I was assigned the outside.

  I thought the women’s match went fairly well except for two small hiccups. The first faux-pas occurred when timekeeper Mel Phillips prematurely rang the bell during a pin attempt. I stood up and waved it off and the match continued on without an elimination. The second mishap occurred when one of the ladies, Velvet McIntyre, accidently hit her head on the canvas. She was in obvious pain. She did continue on until she was eliminated from the match. The highlight of the match was the Jumping Bomb Angels. They absolutely stole the show. For those who have never had the pleasure of watching them perform, do yourselves a favour and look them up; you won’t be disappointed. Speaking of not being disappointed, being a part of the main event was definitely the biggest moment in my career at that time. Getting to read the riot act to Hulk Hogan and getting tossed into the ringside barricade by Andre the Giant further added to making my Survivor Series experience unforgettable.

  Unfortunately, being a part of the main event was not the only unforgettable part of my journey. As I mentioned earlier, I had to borrow Mom’s K-Car to make the trip. The drive home the next morning should have only taken about five hours or so. Mom’s car had other plans for me. Everything started out fine as I made my way north on Interstate 271 and merged onto I-90 eastbound. This is where things went south, figuratively. After about half an hour of driving on I-90, the car started to sputter and backfire. A strange light lit up the dashboard. I thought, Great, now what! I managed to make it to the shoulder, where I sat for about 30 minutes contemplating my next move. Remember that in 1987, cell phones were not the norm as they are today. I was nowhere near an exit and it was a cold day so I really didn’t feel like walking for miles. For some reason I tried turning the key and the car started. Now was the time to act fast. I put the car in drive and I was off again.

  Just when I thought everything was all right, another setback. Same exact thing happened. After 45 minutes of driving, more sputtering and backfiring and coasting the vehicle onto the shoulder once more. What the heck was going on? The same dashboard light was on again. Once again, after about 40 minutes, I turned the key and the car was running like nothing happened. Okay! I put that sucker in drive and off I went. After one more similar occurrence, I managed to make it to Erie, P.A., where I pulled into a Chrysler dealership. I explained the situation to the service tech and he knew right away what the problem was. He explained to me that it was the pick-up coil located under the distributor cap. When the engine heated up to a certain temperature, the two copper wires in the coil would expand, touch each other, and short out the motor. When the engine cooled off, the wires would contract and separate, allowing the engine to run normally. I asked if he could fix it; after all, the car was under warranty. He told me that he could, but couldn’t do it that day because the day after American Thanksgiving, or Black Friday as it is known, is their busiest day. I asked how easy it was to change it myself, figuring I have some mechanical knowledge and could repair it. He said it was very easy to replace but if I did it myself, it might void the warranty. I didn’t want to do that. So I thanked him and left the dealership.

  I went to a KFC a block away and sat down to a big meal. After making Colonel Sanders a healthy profit, my journey continued. The entire trip home was more of the same deal. Drive for about 30 to 45 minutes, engine cuts out, sit for approximately half an hour, then continue driving. Thank goodness it was a cold November day, which helped the motor cool down a little quicker. This was the pattern I followed all the way back to Toronto. Of course, there were a few more food stops along the way but that was a no-brainer as far as I was concerned. Whatever makes one happy, right? I arrived home at nine-thirty that night. I had left Richfield at nine that morning. There it is, what was normally a five-hour drive took me 12 and a half hours. I would have been even more upset about the whole car thing if it wasn’t for all the food that kept me going.

  Would I do it again? Absolutely! Being a part of the first ever Survivor Series, getting involved in the main event match, and being a small part of history was more than worth the “minor” inconvenience of car trouble. What can I say, when you have a passion for your work, these little problems
don’t seem so bad. There were plenty of bigger travel-related mishaps throughout my career and I will get to some of them a little later on.

  Chapter 6

  Ups and Downs

  By now I felt like I was on top of the world, getting to share the ring with some of the most recognizable personalities in the world. They were awesome too. They made me feel welcomed almost from the very beginning and for that I was extremely grateful. By this time, my confidence had grown and I was feeling more relaxed in the ring and in front of the cameras. All was going well, or at least I thought it was. That was until I had another not so pleasant run-in with the Chairman himself, Vince McMahon, during a TV taping.

  To be honest, I’m not sure what city we were in. One of the matches scheduled for this night was an eight-man tag-team match. The participants were “good guys” the Killer Bees, B. Brian Blair and Jim Brunzell, teaming with the Young Stallions, Paul Roma and Jim Powers, to take on the “bad guys” Nikolai Volkoff, The Iron Sheik, Sika the Wild Samoan, and the Ugandan Giant Kamala. Now that was a recipe for disaster, especially for a referee who had yet to have had the opportunity to officiate what would in all likelihood turn into, as we say, a clusterf#@k. I was about to get a crash course in what not to do ever again in a match.

  Going into the match, as always, I asked the guys involved what they were planning to do. I got my instruction and waited for the moment of truth. The match began about as expected with the babyfaces gaining early control. Eventually the heels took over using underhanded tactics. Here is when the match took a turn for the worse. I wish I could describe the events more clearly but for lack of a better term, suffice it to say they buried the shit out of the referee — me! None of the wrestlers listened to me while I tried to enforce the rules. Guys kept entering the ring illegally and didn’t adhere to the five count. It was a mess. It made me look very incompetent, even for a pro-wrestling referee. I’m not saying that none of it was my fault. On the contrary, I was just as much to blame for letting things get so out of hand and I was happier than Tony Chimel at an all you can eat buffet restaurant when the bell rang to end the match. With a sigh of relief, I made my way backstage to an awaiting boss.

  The second I stepped through the curtain, it hit the fan. Vince took off his headset, stood up, and power-walked over to me. Right there in front of everyone, I got an earful about how terrible the match was, how I let them bury me out there, and how there was no possible way they could use that footage on TV. He told me several times that the match was a waste of film and money. After what seemed like forever, Vince ended his criticism, walked back to the monitor, and put his headset back on.

  I was in complete shock. I know this will be hard for some to understand, but depression set in almost the second he was done. I couldn’t help but think that my days with the company were numbered and my dream job with the WWF was quickly becoming a nightmare. Jack Lanza, a former wrestler and now road agent who witnessed the whole ordeal, came over to me immediately after Vince left. He put his arm around my shoulder and said, “Come with me.”

  Walking with Jack, I was trying not to show how upset I really was, but he knew. He led me around the corner out of view from the gorilla position and gave me a pep talk of sorts. The gorilla position is the staging area right behind the entrance curtain; one of the producers sits there, usually along with Vince McMahon, and cues the talent while monitoring the show. The first thing he said was “I know how intimidating Vince is, but don’t feel too bad. At some point, everyone gets yelled at by Vince. The good thing is, in about 30 minutes or so, he’ll come up and talk to you about what happened. He won’t be yelling. It’s kind of his way of saying he feels bad for what happened. You’ll see, it’ll all be just fine. Consider this a learning experience.”

  I thanked Jack for his kind words and told him that I had learned from this night. Sure enough, not 15 minutes later, Vince McMahon walked over to where I was standing. Oh no, here we go again! That’s what was going through my mind. He must have sensed my panic because as he approached he smiled. Now panic turned to confusion. Why the heck was he smiling? Now remember, not only was Vince the boss, he is a large man, which in itself can be very intimidating. I was shaking in my referee boots.

  Placing a hand on my shoulder, Vince said to me in a calm comforting tone, “Listen, I didn’t mean to be so hard on you but I just want everything to be just so, in other words, perfect. At the same time I would like you to learn from mistakes and improve, get better and better. I really want you here with this company. If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be here, but you are and will be for a long time; or at least until you screw up again.” After that last comment he laughed and gave me a good old pat, or should I say slap, on the back, and finished his short speech with, “We all make mistakes; we learn from them and we move on. Don’t let tonight bother you too long. See you tomorrow, pal.”

  I was both relieved and confused at the same time. Then, the more I thought about it, the more I understood the boss. He wants his vision of the product to be the best it can be and also wants those working for him at their best at all times. He never dogs it or phones it in, ever. All he wants is an honest effort each and every day and that’s what he got from me always. I smelled what the boss was cooking that night.

  I was determined not to mess up a match ever again. No one is perfect, though, and my next mishap was soon to happen. Two short weeks after the lecture from Vince, the man who was the original calming force that evening, Jack Lanza, became the angry boss giving me the speech. This was 100% my fault. We were back at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. It seems like that location was a hotspot for me. The match I was refereeing was another tag-team match. This time it was a conventional two versus two tag match. The Young Stallions faced the team of Sika and Kamala. They were having a good match and the crowd was very much into it. Now it was time for the finish. Of course I was aware of the planned ending to the match; unfortunately I jumped the gun, so to speak.

  Here is how it was supposed to go down. Jim Powers was now in the ring and as Gorilla Monsoon would say, “He’s a house of fire!” meaning he’s dominating his opponents. At one point, all four men would be in the ring battling and at the right moment, I was to turn my attention to Paul Roma to try to get him out of the ring and back to his corner. With my focus on Roma and my back to the ring, the heels would cheat behind my back. Roma would give me the okay and I would then turn at the appropriate time to see Powers being pinned. For some reason that escapes me to this day, I turned around before Roma gave me the “Iggy” or signal just in time to see the illegal man, Sika, diving off the top rope and splashing Powers. Sika then rolled out of the ring while Kamala covered Powers for the pin. I should have just counted the pin but for some reason my brain told me to do something completely different. Roma kept shouting at me in carnie, “Just cizount, cizount!” After a few seconds of frozen uncertainty, I called for the bell disqualifying the heels. Everyone in the ring looked confused, including me.

  “The winners of this match, as a result of a disqualification, the Young Stallions!” the ring announcer informed the MLG faithful. As I raised the winners’ hands in victory, Roma leaned over, smiled, and quietly said to me, “Thanks for the win, Jimmy.”

  I looked him straight in the eyes and replied, “Think nothing of it.” He laughed but I wasn’t in a laughing mood. How pissed are Sika and Kamala going to be? How upset will the agents be? What happens when you screw up a finish? These were all questions racing through my mind. The incident at TV was different. The finish of that match wasn’t ruined, just the body of the match.

  After walking the “Green Mile” back to the locker room, the first thing I needed to do was to apologize to all the guys in the match for my error. To my surprise, none of the boys were upset in the least about the unplanned outcome. Each one of them told me not to sweat it. Everyone except Kamala that is, who just nodded while not saying a word, more or less staying in character
. They reiterated that it happens to everyone and that it will most likely not be the last mistake I make. Thanking them for their understanding, I was about to leave the room when Jack Lanza stormed in. He tore into me almost as harshly as Vince had that night at TV two weeks prior. One small difference, Jack’s verbal tirade was laced with F-bombs. Before he was done he removed me from the other match I was scheduled to referee that night as a punishment for my misdeed. He then stormed out of the room leaving me speechless in front of the guys who had just told me not to worry about it. Again, the boys tried to make me feel better, but my confidence was not quite at a high point.

  Later that night at the hotel where all the boys stayed near the Toronto airport, Jack came over to me, apologized for the outburst, and told me to chalk it up as another learning experience and that it would not be the last time I made a mistake. What mattered was how one handled themselves afterwards and showing you have learned from it. I thanked him for the talk and the advice and went to have a few pops with the boys.

  It’s hard to describe how unnerving it is when you believe you have a grasp of things, only to find out that there is so much more that you really don’t know. Thank goodness I found out early on in my career that you should not take any aspect of this business lightly. I kept thinking of the advice Bobby Heenan gave me that one day when he said that in wrestling you never stop learning. Boy was he right! I would never doubt “The Brain” but brother, was he ever right. After that night, never again did I take anything regarding the wrestling business for granted. “Always learning” was now my motto.